You never want to receive a letter with that on the envelope… make for a very anxious 2-3 seconds while you open it. I can’t tell you how many things ran through my head during the mentioned 2-3 seconds. I’d visited Florida 2 times in the past 5 years … did I do something I wasn’t supposed to? I don’t recall getting into trouble with the law.

I opened the letter to find a cheque for $14.52 enclosed… yep a cheque. Was this some sort of scam or sick joke someone was playing on me? About 3 days later I received a call as a follow-up to the mail. It was legit. It seems that my complaining did work.

About 4-5 years ago I had purchased a portable DVD player on ebay and it turned out to be a scam. Myself and 4 others had sent in payments for similar auctions that we won from this ebay seller. Turned out this ebay seller took our money and bolted. There I was, stuck with no  dvd player and my $$ gone. I had to do something…it’s in my nature.

Not only was it impossible to get help from ebay to track down this scum, it was hard finding a place on the internet that looked after this sort of thing. I couldn’t go to tje local police, since I had no way of knowing where this person lived. At a discussion group on the issue (bad ebay sellers) I was told that the FBI had a site where I could go make a report. By this time the other people that fell for the scam had contacted me. We all filled out the complaint forms at the FBI website (special department that was fairly new). It took some time to complete the forms (there were many) and at the back of my head I could hear myself say..you got ripped off and now you’re wasting time completing these forms.

Fast forward 5 years.. They (the FBI) caught the guy, charged him and the case went to court. Since he was a handicap (not sure what that had to do with it… take him to the gallows) I  was told that he didn’t get jail time. However, he had to work and pay back everyone he scammed. So for the past few months I’ve been receiving these small cheques as partial payment for the money he scammed. ( i think he was alos banned from ever owning or using a computer again..I wonder how well that’s working out? He’s probably reading my blog right now ;)  )
If you’ve been scammed you may complete a complaint form at : http://www.ic3.gov/

Here’s another link with some great tips:http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/internetschemes.htm.

You should see the look on the faces of the bank tellers when I go in with the cheques every month with “Florida Dept Of Corrections” on it. Everytime I find myself explaining the whole story. Hey… I’ve got a rep to uphold, don’t want them thinking I was in trouble in Florida

Have a great day!
Chris..

It’s Monday and time for another pet peeve… by now you’re probably thinking that I’m a complainer, but it’s just that I expect a lot from people. Too-much maybe?
My usual routine on a Monday is going to my doctor’s office for my weekly allergy shot. BTW if you suffer with severe allergies as I did, see a specialist and get the allergy shot. Don’t ask me what’s in it or if there are any long term side effects.. I simply don’t care at this point. It works and I’m HAPPY!

This morning I came to realize that I HATE when people don’t signal their turn when driving. Two times this morning I had drivers in fornt of me that turned off the street we were driving along without any warning (signal). I’m not one of those drivers that feel they have to be on your bumper, but on a busy street where you’re going 50km/hr and someone just turns… this can be dangerous.

I wonder why there’s turn signals in cars if they were not meant to be used? Come on people, it’s just a flick of a switch and you don’t even have to flick it back into place, it does so automatically. Are you in that much of a rush?

While going through the pile of emails form the night before for Genuinejobs.com I came across an email from a jobseeker asking for some assistance. Nothing strange about this, since it is support email I was responding to.

The said jobseeker was having some problems contacting the employer that advertised the vacant job which she wanted to apply for. I explained that we don’t do the actual hiring and that we only post the information that was given to us. I went on to further explain that the contact method (could range from… email, fax, phone or mailing address) that’s included with the job post is exactly what we received. I also explained that since the jobs listed were all work from home and can be accessed by anyone globally (afterall this is the internet) that employers must receive 1000’s of applications. For which, they will not personally respond to everyone who may have applied.

She responded to my email with complaints this time…

- why does my emails come back undelivered?

- why can’t you contact these employers to make sure they respond to all applicants

…there were a few more that I can’t remember at this point.

Again, I politely explained that there could be a number of things that would result in a bounced email:

- employers inbox could be full (back to the 1000’s of applicants)

- you may have typed the email address incorrectly when you sent the email

- the employer was not accepting applications any longer

- just the nature of the internet at times (we’ve all had problems emailing others at times)

Rather than say thanks for your help in understanding things and for the service you provide FREE… she wrote back complaining even more. I really wanted to write back and say “this is a free service that you can choose to use or not use”

* I wonder if this job seeker contacts newspapers with complaints, when she applies for a job posted in a classified section and not hear back from that employer? I very much doubt it.

I’m off to Toronto this morning (means driving in traffic which I absolutely HATE) to drop off the girls at my parents place..my sister is taking them on some top secret trip.

Have a great weekend.

Chris..

About 3 years ago we found a great deal on a hotel in FL when we were planning our trip to Disney. The pictures on the internet were superb… nice pool, rooms where big and looked clean and the description of the facilities were equally tempting. We booked, we arrive.. we checked-out! Yep! What a major let-down. Dirty, broken furniture in the rooms, the pool was about 8 feet from a highway and forget about asking the staff any questions.. rude as rude can possibly be. We may still have the record for check-in and out of a hotel. In less than 30 mins (we absorbed the cancellation fee) we were at another hotel directly on the beach.

I’m finding the same situation again. We’ve been looking at properties in the Caribbean through some of the online real estate sites for the past 3 months and all is not usually what they first seem like. We’ve seen about 4-5 so far that we could afford and meet our needs (rooms, lot size, location etc)  and the pictures were all great. However (luckily my sister and relatives who are there can go personally to view these properties since we are 1000’s of km away in Canada) things are not what they first seem to be in pictures. Granted they were in gated communities and close to the beach and the main city… but the actual structure needed help… from what we’ve been told by the people we’ve asked to go take a closer look for us.  I guess you can’t see a faulty roof or broken bricks/tiles or crappy workmanship in the kitchen in pics on the internet. Finding the right home may take a bit longer but Caron is in a good position with her career… nurses are in constant demand and she’ll have no problem securing a job. The girls are luck as well.. there’s a private “Canadian run” academy (school) close to the area we’re looking at so they’ll be among other Canucks And me..well I work from home beach?
Back to the internet seaching for more deceptive pictures of houses.
Regards

Chris..

p.s. if you’re thinking about selling your home here are few things to add some value:

- update old and outdated rooms

- change windows and doors

- add and extra bedroom if you can.

and time for my pet peeve post.

Why is it that delivery people, cable installers, phone company service people etc. can never give us a  real appointment? What’s with the “we’ll be there between 9am and 5pm”? Like I have the time to sit around and wait for you to show up to do your job.

Have a great day!